


Underneath the Spires

by MuseofWriting



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Death, Past Character Death, also this really is just Keith fyi, but I'm new to this so better safe than sorry, idk if this is really "graphic" violence, other paladins are mentioned but none of them appear in person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 21:51:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8302540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuseofWriting/pseuds/MuseofWriting
Summary: Where did Keith go after leaving Voltron? What ghosts from his past followed him?A companion one-shot to What We Lose Along the Way.





	

**Author's Note:**

> STOP!
> 
> Go read What We Lose Along the Way: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8249171/chapters/18903362
> 
> Once you're done crying, come back here and find out what happened to Keith after he left.

            The glass spires of Akarea, the city the size of a country, spiked blindingly into the afternoon sun. Their sides were smooth and imposing, gleaming golden in the light and endlessly reflecting their neighbors. They rose so high that thin white clouds swirled around their upper reaches, and their sharp peaks were just barely visible from the ground beneath them. The best view, according to the brochures, was from the roof of the Moklin Hotel skyscraper, almost two miles away. Closer to the ground, more mundane buildings made of brick and steel flashed a dozen advertisements from every free corner, paying the absurdly high rent with ad revenue. Scrolls of text flew by, shouting sales at the robotics store in the western hills and special dinner deals to eat overlooking Akarea’s newly unpolluted Glibs River. Three dozen different alien species advertised clothing stores ready to cater to any size, shape, or number of appendages. A massive billboard on the interstellar tourism agency office listed passenger ships departing and arriving today. Elegant pedestrian bridges arced over streets bursting with streamlined Ulfunar speeders zipping around boxy hovercars shuttling families and carpools through the city.

            Keith sat inside a homey, second-story coffee shop looking out over the bustle of Center Akarea, sipping a drink that was, as far as he could tell, identical to Earth coffee. His fingers tapped the edge of the smooth wooden table impatiently, watching the other customers. A decade-long habit of suspicious caution made him squint for a glimpse of tell-tale purple or the flash of a weapon hidden under a coat, but everyone here was just enjoying a quiet weekday afternoon.

            He slouched back into his booth, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets to keep them from fidgeting. His eyes went to the TV tucked discreetly in an upper corner of the café. Two aliens – one relatively humanoid, the other dark green, sporting six mouths, three arms, no apparent legs and one very non-human eye – sat at a desk, while up in the top right corner of the screen was a small counter: the number of planets confirmed to be free of Galra. Keith swiped idly at the digital display on top of his table to bring up the sound in his booth. They were discussing the wild ride the stock market had gone through when Kulu, the salt-mine planet, announced it was reopening to free trade. The little number in the corner ticked up three – presumably, another solar system had reached out and declared its liberation. A dozen blue-suited aliens with fish heads came into the coffee shop, bustling past his booth without a second glance, even for that damningly purple scar across his cheekbone. Galra weren’t the only aliens that were purple, after all.

            The news had switched back to the daytime host, a brown-skinned alien with willow leaves for hair. “Thank you, Jip and Kxxovxo,” she said. “And now an update from the Castle of Lions.” Halfway through reaching to swipe the sound back off, Keith froze.

            “We received a statement from the Voltron Paladins that one of their number, Green Paladin Pidge Holt—” her picture, confident in her Paladin armor, glasses reflecting the camera, flashed onto the screen “—is leaving the Voltron team in order to return to her home planet of Earth, in the third galactic sector of the Milky Way. Black Paladin Hunk Garret reported that Paladin Holt is looking to reconnect with her remaining family and hopes to contact the family and friends of her fallen comrades, Lance Sanchez and Takashi Shirogane.”

            _“Tell my family, will you? After you’ve saved the universe and everything, and go back to Earth, tell them what I did? Make me sound cool.”_ Keith flinched, hunching his shoulders and pulling Lance’s jacket closer around him. He could hear his voice as clearly as if he were sitting in the booth next to him, lounging over his shoulder with that ridiculous grin.

            “…were both posthumously awarded the Supernova Medal by the New Galactic Alliance, the highest honor possible from any intergalactic organization, awarded only to those who have displayed remarkable acts of valor by risking or losing their lives in order to defend universal peace.” Pictures of Lance and Shiro split the screen. Keith looked away. “Viewers are reminded that Earth is still a Class X planet, and as such it violates newly reinstated intergalactic law to visit or attempt to make contact with any of its residents. While these laws and classifications are currently under review by the New Galactic Alliance’s interplanetary relations committee, the stipulations surrounding Class X planets are not expected to change.

            “Paladin Holt has been part of the Voltron team for over ten years, and of course she took part in the assassination of Emperor Zarkon approximately six months ago. She returns to Earth accompanied by her brother Matthew Holt, who had previously been held captive by the Galra Empire along with Former Paladin Shirogane before escaping and eventually joining the Castle of Lion’s resistance army. Paladin Holt is succeeded on the Voltron team by Zu of the E Tribe, originally from the planet Sheer in the Lunar 9 System. We turn now to the Trixian Treaty as negotiations continue…” Keith swiped the sound off again, fingering the edge of Lance’s jacket. Voltron was in the news every day, of course it was, even his own name got mentioned with some regularity – although the only picture they had of him was in Paladin armor with his visor down. But somehow he was never prepared for them to bring up Shiro or Lance.

            _“Someday the whole universe is gonna know our names, guys. They’re going to be building statues to Team Voltron in every galaxy!”_

            “Keith Kogane?” He looked up to see a tall, dark-skinned woman in an immaculate business suit. The shock of short, baby-blue hair on her head matched the eyes appraising him. He stood, holding out a hand.

            “You must be Cendre,” he said. She considered his hand for a moment before shaking it. A swirling tattoo stood out against the back of her hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” One of her eyebrows jumped upwards.

            “I’m meeting the Voltron Paladin who, by all accounts, single-handedly took down Zarkon. I think for once I can accurately say the pleasure is all mine.” She had a deep, smooth voice that reminded Keith of a quiet lake. She took a seat across from him, tattooed hands folded on the table. ‘What exactly can I help you with?” Keith fished in the pocket of Lance’s jacket and pulled out an old, faded photo, creased and ragged at the edges. A fuzzy woman’s face looked up in surprise. She had a third eye in the middle of her forehead.

            “Do you know this woman?” he asked, sliding the photo to Cendre. She picked it up, her expression betraying nothing as she examined it, and laid it back down carefully.

            “Difficult to say.” Her voice was impassive. “The picture is very poor quality.” Keith sighed impatiently, pushing the photo back towards her.

            “Do you _think_ you know her?” he asked. Cendre didn’t bother to look at it again.

            “She resembles Shell Karia Zikkin, a colleague of mine almost thirty years ago. Shell disappeared and never came back,” she replied evenly. “Why?” Keith’s hand had clenched into a fist in triumph.

            “I knew it,” he muttered. “Cendre, do you know _why_ she disappeared? Did she— could it have had anything to do with a child?” Cendre looked at him a long time before she answered.

            “Shell had a very good friend, a woman named Soo-Jin. I can’t tell you if Soo-Jin disappeared, I didn’t know her well enough to notice. But she was pregnant when Shell disappeared, and I never saw her after that. But I can’t tell you for sure that those two facts are connected.” Keith was gripping the edge of the table. So many months of hacking and searching, trawling through old databases and forgotten records and now, _finally_ , he might be only a degree of separation away.

            “Soo-Jin, was she… Where was she from?” Cendre pondered a moment.

            “She was a star-crossed, I know that – someone born from parents of two different planets. She came to Akarea in her twenties; I don’t know where she grew up. But I think her mother came from Earth, like you. She was an abductee.” Keith’s heart was racing.

            “Cendre, do you know—” She held up a hand.

            “Excuse me,” she said. “I would like to get a coffee.”

            “Oh. Um, sure,” he said, sitting back into the booth. Cendre stood and went to the counter. With nothing else to do, Keith scanned the customers, wondering how long it would take him to stop looking over his shoulder for Galra soldiers. Everyone lounged in booths, talking quietly and drinking coffee as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

            Shava, the planet on which Akarea was located, had been well established as an intergalactic power and Class A planet long before Zarkon’s ugly spectre had ever darkened the horizon. They’d been one of Altea’s key allies and trading partners back in the day. If Keith had his dates right, the oldest parts of Akarea had been built before the first _homo sapiens_ had evolved on Earth. Shava was an ancient, ancient planet.

            All this meant that the Galra had never subjugated Shava in quite the same way they had most planets. Colonizing them by force would have wrecked one of the richest and most powerful planets in the universe, and the Galra, while power hungry and warmongering, were not stupid. Instead, they had just forced them into signing various unequal treaties and collected exorbitant taxes on all of their trade. None of that had been exactly pleasant, but it had allowed Shava to retain relative independence during the reign of the Galra Empire. While their government had been gutted after the collapse of Galra control in their star system and thrown into chaos as the revolt tried to oust the imperial sympathizers, they had stabilized mere months later. Sitting in this quiet, clean café, Keith felt like a grizzled war veteran who had wandered into society dinner: stepping out of a trench into a place where people’s sensibilities were still offended by day-old beards and dirt on your boots. He shifted uncomfortably.

            _“Jeez, Keith, I’m trying to take you on a date. I’m trying to do cute boyfriend things here. The bayard at your waist kind of spoils the mood. Shiro, tell my boyfriend hauling his bayard everywhere is going to ruin our date mojo.”_

            Cendre was loitering with her coffee by the counter, slowly stirring sugar into it. Keith, impatient, jumped up from the table and walked up. She avoided his eyes as he approached. The barista behind the counter, a reed-thin alien with solid green eyes, gave him a practiced smile.

            “How may I help you today?” she asked. Keith, still looking at Cendre, wasn’t sure what alerted him. A flicker of movement in his peripheral vision, the distinctive _click_ of a claw against a weapon, or just a Paladin’s finely honed sense of danger. He ducked. The bullet whizzed over his head and caught the alien in between her solid green eyes.

            Tackling Cendre to the ground, he rolled sideways as more bullets sprayed the spot where he had been and twisted to see the two Galra soldiers in the entryway. Coming back onto his feet, he ran, zigzagging, instinctually reaching for his bayard and cursing when of course it wasn’t there. Chaos reigned in the previously calm and homey café, patrons screaming, diving to the floor and covering their heads, some of them already dead in pools of red or blue or white blood.

            “FALSE PALADIN! TRAITOR TO YOUR OWN KIND!” one of the Galra bellowed. Keith felt his lip curling upward and, against his will, let out a feral snarl. The sound of it made him flinch. Ice spiked up his spine. What was he doing?

            He dove into one of the empty booths, taking shelter from the bullets, and curled up halfway underneath the table. This wasn’t his fight. He didn’t do this anymore. That was the whole reason he had left. He _wouldn’t_ do this anymore.

            “Hiding, you coward?” the Galra asked. Keith’s fists clenched. The bullets had stopped spraying, and they were approaching slowly. They were expecting an ambush, he realized. _Someone will come_ , he told himself. _You don’t have to fight them. Someone will come. Someone has called for help and the police are on their way._ He felt his nails elongating, biting into his palms, and forced his fist to relax. He wouldn’t do this. He _wouldn’t_.

            “Come out, come out, wherever you are, mutt of a Galra.” _Someone will come. Someone will come. Someone will come._ The boots stopped just behind the booth. There was a moment of hesitation, and then Keith felt someone grab and hoist him up by the hair.

            He couldn’t help it. Hours on the training deck, years of built-up muscle memory and instinctive reactions kicked in. He pulled the dagger from his belt and slashed at the hand holding him, causing the Galra to let him go with a yelp. A low, guttural growl rumbling in his chest, he flung himself forward, driving the knife toward a chink in the Galra’s armor. He wasn’t quite fast enough, and he lost the knife to the Galra’s arm. Still he willed back the claws trying to grow on his hands, lashing out with feet and elbows, managing to send his opponent stumbling backwards and falling over one of the chairs, snapping it to pieces, but just as he did, something slammed into the back of his head. He went down to the floor like a stone, vision blurring, his body as limp as a rag doll. The other Galra hauled him up to his knees by the hair while his friend struggled back to his feet. A claw traced the purple scar that ran across his face. He tried to jerk away, but only managed a weak sort of shudder.

            “They say that in his last moments, the Emperor clawed your face to mark you out to his loyal followers. They say you kept your true nature secret for years, but with that purple mark across your cheek you could no longer hide your Galra parentage and so you fled Voltron.” Keith closed his eyes, trying to breathe, his scalp burning where the Galra was pulling at his hair. The tiled floor pressed hard against his knees. He felt the Galra lean down next to his ear, his hot breath on his neck. “I’ll finish the job my Emperor started, traitor. I’ll claw off the rest of your face. Strip. By. Strip.” Abruptly, he felt a claw against his stomach, and the Galra ripped his shirt up the front. He tugged sharply, and tore Keith’s shirt and jacket away from him, exposing the network of purple scars crisscrossing his pale arms and torso. He let go his hold on Keith’s hair, sending him dropping onto all fours. Cendre was watching, wide-eyed, peeking out from behind a table. _Someone will come_. “This is your hero, this liar, this traitor, the false Paladin Keith Kogane,” the Galra said. “He tried to keep his true nature secret, hidden, but his scars reveal the truth: he is a half-breed of a Galra. One of your precious champions of peace in the universe is a liar, a traitor, and a monster. And in the end, he didn’t protect you.” The Galra turned back to Keith. _Someone will come_. “We’re going to shoot them one by one while you watch. And then, I’m going to claw your face off.” Keith’s head was hanging down, his breathing uneven. He made no response. _Someone will come_. The Galra grabbed his shoulder, shaking him. _Someone will come_. “Hey traitor! Did you hear me? I said we’re going to shoot—”

            _No one will come_.

            Keith grabbed the Galra’s arm, and with all the strength he could muster, flipped the Galra over his shoulder and smashed him into the ground. The gun dropped out of his hand and Keith snatched it, shooting at the Galra on the ground, then spun with deadly speed to the other and shot him in the head before he could react. Only then did he come to his feet. The Galra he had flipped was still alive, gasping for breath and bleeding out through a wound in its stomach. Keith walked around to his side, keeping the gun trained on him, and pressed his foot into the Galra’s wound. It cried out in an animal shriek of pain. Keith glared down at him.

            “Voltron will find every last soldier and supporter of the Galra Empire,” he said. “And they will exterminate you. One. By. One.” He squeezed the trigger.

            There was a moment of total silence. Keith dropped the gun and kicked it away. Everyone in the café watched him, seeming afraid to move. He walked slowly over to where the Galra had tossed his clothes. He tried to bend down, but dropped back to his knees, his head still swimming. He carefully extracted the ruined remains of his shirt, and then pulled Lance’s jacket back on, wrapping it around himself. For a moment he simply stayed there, sitting on his feet, his arms hugging the jacket to him, trying to will back the burning behind his eyes.

            Finally, he stood. He walked over to the counter. The body of the green-eyed alien was slumped over it, bleeding slowly. He touched her shoulder hesitantly.

            “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. He hesitated. Cendre was watching him from the floor. He glanced at her, but then looked sharply away. At a loss for words, he simply walked out.

            He made it down to the street before Cendre caught up with him. He paused in the doorway, holding Lance’s jacket closed around his bare torso. She was panting.

            “Keith, wait.” He turned to look at her, and for a moment she recoiled. Her mouth thinning into a line, though, she walked forward.

            “Well? You got your question answered,” he said, more angrily than he intended. Cendre paused again, stopping a few feet away.

            “Soo-Jin had an affair with a Galra soldier here as part of the Imperial Guard. She became an outcast. Those in Akarea who are not imperial stooges always hated the Galra, you must understand. When the affair became known to her friends, no one would speak to her anymore, except for Shell. I…” Cendre worried her lip. “I thought she was a disgusting traitor. But she is… She is most likely your mother, yes?” Keith looked away. “Paladin… I cannot apologize for my hatred of the Galra. But you are not like them.” He rounded on her, furious.

            “I _am them_. I am _part Galra_ , and no matter what you think of me, you _hate_ everything they have touched — which includes _me_.”

            _“I don’t hate them. I couldn’t hate an entire_ species _, that’s dumb. I might hate Zarkon or Sendak or any other those other guys who try really hard to kill us, but the rest of them…” Lance shrugged, his bony shoulder running up and down along Keith’s chest. “I figure they’re mostly like us, trying to live their lives, caught in a war they can’t get out of.”_

            Cendre held her hands up in a universal sign for surrender. “I’m sorry, Paladin Kogane. I can’t apologize for hating the ones who took over my planet and killed and enslaved so many. I… had heard the rumors about your scar and… when you started asking about Soo-Jin, I wondered… But it doesn’t, it should not matter what I think of your ancestry. You just saved my life. You have already saved so many lives.” He didn’t even bother to reply to that, his face still set in hard lines. Solid green eyes stared up at him, glassy and unseeing. He should have closed them. “I will help you find Soo-Jin, if you will help me find out what happened to Shell,” she continued. “I have spent my whole life in Akarea. I know people who will be able to help us track both of them down. I will… I would like to help you. No matter what… what species you are.”

            Keith refused to look at her for a moment longer, but eventually his shoulders dropped and the last of the tension from the fight went out of him. He had reacted the same way when he learned about his Galra heritage. He could hardly blame her. He pulled the photo back out of Lance’s pocket and handed it to her.

            “Where do we start?”

**Author's Note:**

> Mehhhhh so I'm not as happy with this as I was with WWLAW, but I had a writing bug in my system and I wanted to do something with it, so... ta-da. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it regardless, sorry if it didn't really live up to expectations. At least the descriptions of Akarea were fun to write.


End file.
